Throughout the fifteen years of writing on my web site, I have left a message for the new year
that focused on the energies of the coming year with key words and suggestions on how to
best utilize these energies for personal growth and responsible, conscious creatorship.
Rather than discuss an entire array of what's happening on our planet, this new year's message
will zero in on one area, as this one area affects everything.

The collective "we" have decided to have a future on this planet. We have decided to pay attention
to the earth, and not stop there but go for the entire cosmos. We have decided that around 2012
we will enter a new phase in consciousness. Our consciousness has been moving
ahead rapidly during the past 20 years, and now we can take the next step to prepare for 2012
using even more of our intuition.

As I have written about in my articles about the Source and our Oversoul,
(if you haven't already read it, please do), we know that we are more than just one being in a body
experiencing physicality on Earth. We are multidimensional beings having many experiences in many places.
Some of these are physical and some are not. But, regardless of physical or non-physical, we can
upload and download information between the Source and ourselves, and our Oversouls and ourselves.
The doorway to all of this is through our Higher Self.

Our wisdom, love and relationship with our Higher Self where our power resides. When we set the intention
and ask to communicate with our Higher Self, it is for the purpose of clarifying and understanding a
situation from a broader, higher, and deeper perpsective--the stuff we frequently do not see on the surface.
Before we emotionally react, we can take a moment, tune into our Higher Self, and then respond from a place of wisdom.
We can ask our Higher Self, "What am I not seeing here? What can I learn from this? What are my options?"
Our Higher Self will express to us the deeper, hidden, crux of the matter, and offer suggestions as to
how we can find a way to deal with it. The Higher Self is our number one guide in love, truth, honesty,
compassion. However, Higher Self won't dictate what we should or must do. We have to be the conscious
creators and make our own decisions, which are fully supported by our Higher Self. It cannot
and will not ever judge us or abandon us. It is always with us - but we have to develop a more conscious relationship
with it if we are to take the steps towards personal empowerment, and even for helping our own survival.

The Higher Self communicates in the easiest way that gets through to us. It might be through visuals,
or words, sounds, feelings. It can be extremely subtle or very obvious. The stronger our connection
becomes with our Higher Self, we will receive its messages quickly, clearly, timely, and reliably.
I have had my Higher Self direct me down certain streets to avoid accidents or delays, which in return
kept me in synch with the universe. My Higher Self has shown me how to communicate with another person's
Higher Self so that there can be understanding of why a person said or did something, and sometimes a
healing will take place because of that. One's Higher Self can also act as a gatekeeper, making sure
that no entities intending harm will be channeled through that person. The few times I had forgotten
about my Higher Self, I suffered. When I have been consciously connected to My Higher Self, it saved
my life more than once.

When we live life as our higher selves and honor the higher self in another, it can be incredibly powerful.
Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary (my idol who passed over September, 2009) understood this, even though
she didn't use the words "higher self". She spoke of her group's personalities, then added this
brilliant awareness: "But when we got on stage, or when we were singing in rehearsal, we all sort of sang to our
idealized version of each other. And if you sing to what you think could be, it has a magical
quality of the two people you're singing with all of a sudden start to reach for that idealized
image that you're projecting. And all of a sudden, you ARE what you thought you could be."* This
is living as the creator/higher self! When this happens, everyone can see it and feel it - it is pure
power. As many of us know, PP&M were the greatest folk group of all
time and helped to create--and certainly influenced--anti-war movement beginning in the 1960s.

On a related note of connecting to one's higher self, Noel Paul (from PP&M) wrote a marriage song for Peter.
Noel felt that "Wedding Song" was revealed to him, that it had been given to him as a gift for Peter and
he didn't have the right to claim the writer's royalty on it. He gave it away to a foundation, and it became
the biggest sheet music seller in the country.

The Higher Self will help guide us through difficult times, and it will remind us about how much we are
always loved and never alone. It inspires us and revives our passion. This help is invaluable and I feel needs to become part of our daily life.
Can you imagine the changes that our world could make if more people consulted with their Higher Selves?
It is moving through life with the veils removed with pure personal empowerment (with responsibility).
This is the real natural high, and nothing compares with it because it is your direct line to the Source
(God/Goddess/All That Is), pure love and light.

Wishing you all the real deal, a naturally high new year.

With much love and light your way....
Shaman Nora

* From the film "Peter, Paul & Mary: Carry it On: A Musical Legacy, 2004.